Re: st: local variables program

["Michael S. Hanson" <mshanson@mac.com>]

On Jun 25, 2007, at 9:22 AM, Nachbar, Dirk wrote:

> global minRMSE=999999999999999999
	[snip]

>   if e(rmse) < $minRMSE {
>     global minRMSE = e(rmse)
	[snip]

>   }

	If I'm not mistaken, you can improve this code slightly by  
exploiting the fact that Stata sees "missing" (i.e. "global minRMSE  
= .") as an infinitely large number.  Thus, the first time through  
your loop, e(rmse) < . ("missing") should always evaluate to "true",  
and then the rest of your code will identify any smaller RMSE values  
within the loop.

	Again, it's clearly not a big deal, but infinity is always greater  
than any finite large number.  So while it is unlikely that your code  
will fail with "global minRMSE=999999999999999999", I suspect it  
would never fail with "global minRMSE = ."

	Hope this helps.

                                        -- Mike


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